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st: Protected do files


From   Fred Wolfe <[email protected]>
To   [email protected]
Subject   st: Protected do files
Date   Wed, 28 May 2003 09:56:01 -0500

In the US, a new set of privacy regulation known as HIPAA, strongly discourages the use of identifiers. For example, date of birth (DOB) is an identifier. We "de-dentify" DOB by dropping it and using -age- instead, after adding some random (algorithmically) generated noise to age. As one might guess, there are times when we need the actual age or DOB for use in a program.

One way to do this would be to provide the conversion algorithm in a protected (encrypted) program. I wonder if there might be any way to encrypt a file (do or ado) so that Stata could read it but no one else could, kind of like a Stata internal program. I suspect the answer is no.

I'd welcome any suggestions. No comments on the imbecility of such regulations, please, as such is already known/

Fred



Fred Wolfe
National Data Bank for Rheumatic Diseases
Wichita, Kansas
Tel (316) 263-2125 Fax (316) 263-0761
[email protected]


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